Charlie Duke From Planet Earth: A Conversation with an Apollo Astronaut

One of the things we're exploring in this series is this idea that, you know, we're gonna live on the Moon, we're gonna colonize Mars, and that ostensibly this is an effort to save humanity.

We're gonna, by in doing so, we're, we're gonna save humanity.

And, and I'm curious about how your religious beliefs, how, how that informs how you think about that.

I think that's a dream-

[laughs]

... of colonizing Mars.

I'm not advocating it either.

I'm just thinking about-

Not me

... who would want to live on Mars? I mean, every time y-

[laughs]

... you know, every time you go outside, you gotta put on a space suit.

It's not uninhabitable, but it's, it, it's a sp- outside is a sp- it's nothing out there except wind and dust and, uh...

And so, uh, I don't see us, people, uh, we, I have some friends that say, "Well, we're gonna, Earth is gonna give out." Well, I don't believe that.

We got a lot of resources, and we, we're learning how to use the resources undersea, and we're losing how to, learning how to re- use the resources on the Moon.

Uh, the Moon has a lot of resources that we can use and mine, and be a lot e- easier to mine those resources on the Moon and bring them back and use them down here than it is to, uh, try to go out and colonize Mars.

Uh, a Mars trip, robotics is so great now that why, why risk a human being to go to Mars when you can, uh, ha- have something basically with human intelligence, with AI and all of that stuff that's doing the job of a human being, uh, without the exposure? So I, I'm not a, I'm not a big colonizer of Mars with people, but, uh, I certainly, but, uh, I certainly believe in Mars for, uh, exploration.

I, I, I remember reading a quote where you talked about, uh, human exploration and, and it was something to the effect of, you know, people want to experience exploration through man's eyes.

So do you think there will ever be a, a manned mission to Mars? And I'm not saying colonizing necessarily.

Yeah, I think so.

We'll be able to, uh, overcome the expos- uh, radiation exposures and, uh, uh, protect the crew.

And, uh, I have nothing against, uh, a manned exploration of Mars, sending people to Mars.

Uh, I don't think we'll ever colonize it and live up there, but, uh, who knows what the future's gonna hold.

Uh, and I'm not against any of that.

And I think it's down the road.